Gluten-free apple, custard & almond praline cupcakes

Makes 12 – 18 cupcakes dependant on size

Last Sunday we had a ‘making day’. My husband spent the day finishing his manga style robot and after painting it perfectly… continued painting it so that it looked like it had been through a battle… or twelve. It looks fabulous! At some point in time he’s planning on creating a Tumblr blog of his creations. If he permits, I’ll share it with you. You didn’t think I was the only person making things in our house? 😉

As DM spends most days hunched over a laptop staring at rows upon rows of numbers or in meetings about meetings for meetings, he likes to come home and do something to turn his business brain off. Ideally he’d prefer to be spending it in a garage, pulling apart some ginormous 1980’s supercar that looks like it fell out of a 1980’s Transformer cartoon (he and I have differing opinions about what constitutes a classic car) and putting it back together. But as we presently live in an apartment and don’t have a garage or an enormous monstrosity of a car, he makes do with putting tiny versions of them together and has recently moved on to items that look like they belong in a Miyazaki film.

So whilst DM was painting away in the studio, I baked and spent some time putting together another tutorial that I’ll share with you on Wednesday. Here is the result of my baking endeavours. They’re delicious. The cake is a gluten-free butter-cake with slices of apple through the middle. They’re topped with a thick custard (I used the recipe from the Apple Custard Tart I made a couple of weeks ago) and decorated with shards of almond praline. It creates a lovely combination of flavours and textures! Below is the recipe so you can make them yourself if you desire!

Method

Using an electric mixer, beat together the sugar, vanilla and butter until the sugar is dissolved and it is light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, beating well after each addition.

Add flour and milk and mix until well combined.

Place a spoonful of batter into each of the cupcake liners. Smoothen out evenly with a spoon and then place a layer of sliced apple over the top. Add another layer of cake mixture and smoothen out.

Place your cupcakes into the middle of the oven. Bake for about 15 minutes.

When cooked, leave the cupcakes in the tin to cool for the first 10 minutes; then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To Assemble

Using an electric beater, whisk for 2 minutes or until custard is light and has slightly changed colour.

Attach a large closed star piping nozzle to a piping bag.

Fill piping bag with cold whipped custard.

Hold your bag perpendicular to your cupcake and whilst applying a consistent pressure (attempting to move in one fluid motion), start applying buttercream to the outside edge of your cupcake, continue in a slightly overlapping spiral motion until you reach the center of the cake. Release the pressure on your piping bag just before lifting up the nozzle.